Upcoming Seminar "The use and abuse of p-values" Dr. Darren Dahly

Submitted by Barrie Tyner on Tue, 2016-06-28 11:57

The use and abuse of p-values

Statisticians, philosophers, and other scientists have been arguing about p-values for over a century. This debate has recently intensified, largely due to concerns about research waste, a so-called replication crisis in psychology, and evidence that many researchers don’t understand what p-values are. The use of p-values has become so contentious in some circles that a well-known journal in psychology completely banned them from their publication. This in turn led to a position statement from the American Statistical Association aimed at clarifying once and for all what a p-value is, and perhaps more importantly, what it isn’t. This talk will provide background to the ongoing debate about p-values and other forms of statistical inference; highlight the key points from the ASA position statement and responses to it; and most importantly, help applied researchers identify and avoid common misconceptions about p-values.